Monthly Archives: December 2010

As with many, many other 1970s Marvel covers, that DEFENDERS piece shows evidence of lots of retouching by John Romita, particularly on the Hulk’s head, which looks like it was almost completely redrawn by him.

And check out those blue-pencil editorial instructions in the right margin: “JR — CHANGE VALKYRIE BACK TO OLD OUTFIT”. Luke Cage’s face has also very clearly been reworked.

In fact, between Romita’s modifications and Janson’s inks, when I first glanced at this cover I thought it may have been drawn by Rich Buckler, doing a Kirby pastiche, instead of by the King himself. Still a nice job, however, and I always love to see original cover art from the ’70s–my favorite era of comics.

Awesome observations, John. I hadn’t taken a really close look at that art, but you’re right, there is a tremendous amount of white-out on it, especially on the faces of Hulk and Luke Cage. Hulk does look like it was redrawn by Romita; Luke Cage looks a little like Sal Buscema to me — maybe Sal was in the office and he did some Romita-esque changes to the artwork. Great example of way too much micro-management going on in my opinion. I can understand wanting consistency on costumes for continuity and marketing, but to me the decisions to “Romita-ize” much of Jack’s 70s art — with the Romita faces plastered on a Kirby-body — seems like editorial meddling by younger editors who weren’t fans of Jack’s style. I love the Kirby 70s covers. I’ll be posting many more in the future. Here’s one of my favorites. Kirby/Giacoia.

This one below is also a favorite even though the perspective of the people inside the arch is way off — they must be on their knees. Very HQ image so click on the art and you can zoom in to see the details. The Mr. Fantastic face doesn’t really look like Kirby to me — almost looks like Gil Kane’s style to me, or maybe Romita funneled through Sinnott. This is a stat of the original art with more white-out changes made on top. I wonder if the actual original art for this has ever surfaced. Maybe Rand and the Kirby Museum have the pencil xerox for this page? Rand, you out there? Do you have Jack’s pencils for this page? It would be fun to compare them to the published image. It does look like some of the faces inside the arch were changed on this stat. One of the last Kirby/Sinnott covers.

Thanks for all of your great comments over the last several months, John, and happy holidays to all of you out there who have been checking out the Kirby Dynamics weblog.

I’d never heard the Kirby/Lucas lunch anecdote so I asked Kirby Historian Stan Taylor if he had any info:

My question: One of my k-blog readers mentioned something about Kirby meeting Geroge Lucas for dinner and discussing 4W. He said it was in Ronin Ro’s book. You know anything about this?

Stan Taylor: They got it wrong. It was Roy Thomas, Lucas and Ed Summer- the owner of Supersnipe Comics and a backer of Lucas’ They were trying to interest Marvel in publishing a comic book adaptation, and Roy mentioned that parts sounded similar to Kirby’s new Gods.

Thanks to Stan for the reply and to Angelo for his comments. The Kirby/Lucas Star Wars debate will probably never die (unlike Darth Vader), but I think we can all agree on one thing: Darkseid really needs to get rid of those stripper boots! And here he has on what looks like a leather mini-skirt! Sexy I guess for some, but not very scary.

I guess if Kirby did create Star Wars we can give him credit for all the wacky Star Wars fans?

Here’s a more detailed path of the hero from Campbell. Lucas probably learned this structure in film school, Kirby learned it after decades making comics.

Here’s the more complex 17-stage monomyth. A template that makes for great myths and great movies. Click on the image to zoom in. If you’re an aspiring writer and you have a story that is missing something, try inserting one of these phases into your narrative. Sure, it’s become a cliche in Hollywood now to use Campbell’s hero journey, but don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it. It works.

secrethistoryofstarwars.comis a great website if you want to look at some actual research on the origin of Star Wars. I want to add that I think the Kirby/Lucas topic would make for a great book — you have two of the most successful creators of all time here — so hopefully instead of attacking George Lucas, in the future one of the Kirby purists or even one of the Kirby critics might do some actual research and find out if there really is a conspiracy afoot to marginalize Kirby’s influence on Star Wars. Maybe it’s true! Maybe Lucas stole Star Wars from Kirby. I’d just like to see some solid historical data. Until that information comes to light, I’m not buying the Kirby-Lucas-Campbell-Conspiracy.

If we sweep the Kirby-Lucas-Campbell-Conspiracy theory aside, I do think it’s plausible that George Lucas may have swiped several themes from Kirby’s 4W. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone pointed out the similarities between Star Wars and 4W in the late 1970s and Lucas realized he would probably be better off simply keeping his mouth shut about the topic. But that’s speculation on my part. For me, I think it’s better to credit Jack for the things he did create instead of crediting him for things he may simply have influenced. So calm down Kirby purists, if George Lucas announced tomorrow: “Kirby inspired Star Wars!” I’d be the first to stand up and applaud, all I can say is based on my reading on the subject, I really think Jack was 1 out of 10,000 influences on Lucas’ Star Wars, and that fact is really good enough for me. Honestly though, I bet “source” and “force,” and dark side and Darkseid are just coincidences. I would think Dr. Doom is certainly one of the influences for Darth Vader, but ironically according to Kirby, Jack saw the character as only having a small scar on his face — which means it might have been Stan Lee’s idea to have a character horribly disfigured beneath the iron mask.

At worst George Lucas may be guilty of some unconscious plagiarizing, or maybe his lawyers told him to simply not discuss the topic of 4W or Kirby simply to avoid any possibility of accusations of plagiarism. Who knows. it would be nice if Lucas would discuss Kirby in an interview, but I don’t know if anyone has ever even asked him about the topic of Kirby and 4W. I’d assume maybe Mark Evanier might have some research in his files that could shed some light on this, but I don’t expect to see his comprehensive Kirby biography any time soon, so until I see more information, in my opinion Kirby was simply one of the many influences on Star Wars, and that’s still pretty cool if you are a Kirby fan. Jack’s imagination has been a huge inspiration for a lot of people.

Thanks to Angelo for his comments on Ronin Ro’s Tales to Astonish book.

I read this book recently. A fantastic read that’s quite eye opening and shocking at times. I especially enjoyed the part where Jack Kirby and George Lucas have dinner and Jack tells George about a new story he’s working on, the New Gods. He tells George about Mark Moonrider, the “religious presence” known as The Source, his Dark Father, children separated from fathers at birth and the clash between good and evil etc….the book provides many many more details on this. This lunch took place in 1971/1972…..5-6 years before Star Wars was released. I’m not trying to suggest Lucas ripped off Kirby’s idea but there is no doubt Kirby influenced his epic story heavily.

I don’t have the Ronin Ro book at the moment, I loaned it to another Kirby fan, so I asked Angelo for a little more info on the Kirby/Lucas meeting.

I located my book, the dinner included Roy Thomas, Ed Summer (owner of Supersnipe Comic Emporium in Manhattan) and George Lucas. At this dinner George Lucas was relaying his story for Star Wars in which Roy Thomas noticed it sounded a lot like Jack Kirby’s New Gods. In the book, it starts on the first paragraph (middle of the page) on page 199 and continues to page 200. What I took away from this part of the book was that (in my opinion) George Lucas is hugely indebted to Jack Kirby for Star Wars. To me, there are simply too many parallels at the core of the Star Wars story.

Thanks to Angelo for the comment. Believe it or not among some hardcore Kirby fans the Kirby/Lucas debate is pretty contentious. I’m only going to say a few things because we may never really know for sure what exactly took place. And to everyone reading this, please understand I’m just giving my opinion, so don’t take my comments personally. I’ve encountered some people over the years who get very upset when I talk about this topic, especially Kirby fans who despise George Lucas because he’s rich and famous, but I enjoy talking about this subject, so here goes… Like most debates, there seems to be two camps on this topic, the conservative point of view and the liberal point of view. I hate labels because they’re always imperfect, but I’ll call it the Kirby critics versus the Kirby purists.

I find that even Kirby’s harshest critics tend to agree Jack Kirby was one of George Lucas’ influences. Lucas admits that he read comic books, and I recall a quote where Lucas says he was familiar with Jack Kirby’s comics. Even people who hate Jack Kirby with a passion are still willing to admit surely Kirby must have been one of the influences on Star Wars — but the Kirby critics main contention is that Jack Kirby is not the pivotal, foundational influence for the Star Wars series, but simply one in a thousand. Seems reasonable, right?

On the other hand you have a very small group of what I call Kirby purists — they suggest that Jack Kirby’s fourth world series was the single most important influence on the first Star Wars movie. George Lucas was so embarrassed by this fact afterwards, he invented a false backstory: after the Star Wars movie was released, George Lucas pretended that he read Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces in order to hide his true influence (Kirby and comics). This theory is based on a Salon article called “Galactic Gasbag” (2002).

Here’s my take on this: although I usually disagree with them on many topics, I have to side with the Kirby critics on this one. Attacking George Lucas and accusing him of lying about reading Joseph Campbell’s book seems rather extreme to me — and quite frankly silly unless there’s some evidence. Surely it’s possible George Lucas read Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces when he was in film school? Maybe someone remembers George Lucas reading the book and that would put the Joseph Campbell conspiracy theory to rest?

I’m not an expert on the subject by any stretch of the imagination (I enjoyed the first Star Wars film, but I found the other five sort of disappointing, and I haven’t really read any of the Star Wars comic books or novels), but quickly: here’s what I think about the Jack Kirby/George Lucas connection based on some reading on the subject, discussing this with some of the experts, and several off the record conversations on the topic.

I think George Lucas read Hero With a Thousand Faces before he made the Star Wars movie. I just don’t see any reason not to believe Lucas on this.

The Hero’s journey, a simple movie template.

There are hundreds of articles online if you want to read about George Lucas and Joseph Campbell. Here is an excerpt from one called Star Wars: Origins, by Kristen Brennan, followed by some screen caps of her chart.

Kristen Brennan: Lucas had already written two drafts of Star Wars when he rediscovered Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces in 1975 (having read it years before in college). This blueprint for “The Hero’s Journey” gave Lucas the focus he needed to draw his sprawling imaginary universe into a single story. Note that the Wachowski Brothers’ wonderful film The Matrix is carefully built on the same blueprint.”

I also think George Lucas saw hundreds of television shows, hundreds of motion pictures, hundreds of movie serials; he probably read hundreds of comic books, hundreds of comic strips, and he combined all of these elements into his first script for The Star Wars. The Fighting Devil Dogs films are one possible influence.

Joseph Campbell’s work gave George Lucas a template where he could apply the hero’s journey to his film script. For example, the concept of a son at war with his father is a very common mythological motif. Jack Kirby certainly didn’t create that. I think it’s much more likely that George Lucas and Jack Kirby were both mining the same mythological goldmine.

Here are a few more influences on Star Wars posted by Miss Cellania on neatorama.

Steve Persall: Campbell defined the Hero Cycle, a course of events that occurs as a rite of initiation in every myth, pinpointing the need for mentors, villains, elixirs and jesters along the way. Each step can be traced in the adventures of Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker. Before Campbell died in 1987, the scholar and Lucas became friends. A storyteller needs a mentor as much as a hero does. “Yes, I consider him a mentor,” Lucas said at a recent New York press conference. “He was an amazing scholar and an amazing person. When I started doing Star Wars, I re-read Hero with a Thousand Faces. After Return of the Jedi, somebody gave me a tape of one of his lectures. I was just blown away by that. He was much more powerful as a speaker than he was as a writer.”

A short time later, Lucas loaned his studios to PBS to produce the Campbell series. Letters and gifts exchanged by the two visionaries are on display in the Joseph Campbell Archives in Santa Barbara, Calif. The founding curator of that museum, Dr. Jonathan Young, said Campbell compared Lucas to the masters. “Campbell was very grateful that Lucas presented the elements of Luke’s initiation so clearly,” Young said. “The idea of a calling, of being drawn away into a place of wisdom, finding allies and mentors, accomplishing the ordeals, and then returning.” In Campbell’s teachings, myths inspire both awe and recognition. They communicate a sense of universal order and show how people should live.

Not a very good scan, but here is the original artwork for the cover of Jack’s Bicentennial Battles.

If you look closely you can see the edges where the Minutemen image was pasted onto the page.

It appears the owner of the original artwork must have removed a paste-up of Captain America sprawled out on the ground to reveal some Kirby machinery underneath.

These are not great scans, but it looks like someone in production made a xerox of the space ship (in the orange circle), then used that copy as a paste-up a few inches higher (in the yellow circle). That allowed room for the Captain America paste-up to be inserted.

Here’s a comment from John S. on yesterday’s post:

My guess is that the masthead strips were provided by Marvel, not photocopied by Jack, because if you look carefully, you’ll see that the lettering on the printed OZ treasury is in negative (that is, white on black or color), while the lettering on Jack’s pencilled page is positive (black on white). It’s fairly unlikely that Jack’s home copier had the capability to make changes like that.

I can’t understand why Marvel would replace the shot of Cap boxing against John L. Sullivan with a picture of the Minutemen, particularly since Jack’s original composition allowed room for the UPC symbol. Taking out a picture of the book’s star and replacing it with some non-descript soldiers doesn’t make much sense, especially in view of the fact that they STILL left enough dead space in that area for the symbol, but then didn’t put it in!

I’m with you on the logo, as well. It’s good that they left it mostly as Kirby had designed it, but having the stripes on the LARGE word in the MIDDLE made more sense from a design standpoint than what they did in the final version.

It’s still a good cover, though, in spite of those minor criticisms, and an even better BOOK–which I also consider to be one of the earliest American graphic novels (as was Jack’s 2001 adaptation). The story was fabulous, and although I wasn’t too crazy about the Herb Trimpe inks, I thought the contributions from Giacoia, Romita and BWS were outstanding.

The cover to Jack’s Bicentennial Battles Marvel Treasury Special (1976) Kirby/Giacoia. Below that, a xerox of Jack’s original pencils.

Notice the caption at the top that says: “Marvel Treasury of Oz.” Probably Jack (or someone in production) added that as a guide (the published caption would be added later) after clipping it off the cover from the Marvelous Land of Oz (1976), a Marvel Treasury Edition featuring an adaption of The Wizard of Oz.

If I had to guess, I’d suspect Jack probably had a copy of the Wizard of Oz Treasury, he xeroxed the “Marvel Treasury of Oz” masthead, then he glued that to the original pencils so that he could get the composition perfect. Also notice in the bottom left-hand corner, Jack had drawn a blank box for the UPC code and he had Cap in a boxing match, which was replaced in the published version with the Minutemen carrying the flag, probably penciled and inked by Giacoia.

I would guess Jack also did the lettering for the penciled title. I actually prefer Jack’s version with the stripes on “Bicentennial” but as you can see they ended up using virtually all of the original design.

This is one of the only times I’m aware of where Klaus Janson inked Jack’s published work. In the 1970s Marvel was going through a transition where a lot of new artists were coming onboard, so we get to see examples like this where different inkers get to interpret Jack’s pencils. Janson would go onto have incredible success inking Frank Miller’s innovative run on the Daredevil title, and I think Klaus deserves some of the credit for helping Miller become such a success in the industry. Some of the pencil/inker combinations on Jack’s 70s covers were more successful than others, but I thought this combination worked very well. I loved the colors on this book as a kid, but looking at the original artwork, you can see a fairly detailed group of buildings in the background which are obscured by that dark brown color.

The Kirby x-men series wasn’t a success because there was a lack of team dynamic. The characters were one dimensional. It was Claremont and Byrne who gave the characters depth. Wolverine is the most popular character and that is not a Kirby creation so I don’t feel Kirby should be given a credit for the new version of x-men.

I think Jack does deserve credit for creating the initial X-Men concept with Stan Lee in 1963. All the major characters are there: Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Professor X, and Magneto.

The New X-Men is a synthesis of Jack’s team and later versions of the team.

In my opinion, putting something like this in the film credits would be fair:

X-men: created by Stan Lee and Jack KirbyNew X-Men: created by Len Wein and Dave CockrumAdditional X-Men writers and artists: John Byrne, Chris Claremont, etc., etc.

Now, I haven’t looked closely at the credits in the X-Men films — so maybe all of the above are mentioned — but regardless, I do think Byrne and Claremont obviously deserve recognition for what they contributed to the property.

I’m sure many other artists contributed other new characters — but I do think it’s important to separately discuss the actual genesis of the X-Men property: and that happened with X-Men # 1 by Kirby/Lee.

The real foundational element of that series is the concept of the school for gifted youngsters, which is a great springboard allowing writers/artists to bring in new characters all the time. Mainly, I think it’s that idea of young kids with special abilities in a kind of high school environment that resonates with so many young people, and I think that is a direct result of Jack creating a combination kid gang/superhero team. So although I do agree artists and writers who worked on the new team should be recognized in the comics and in the movies, Kirby also deserves to be considered one of the creators of the successful X-Men series even if a character like Wolverine is the most important part of that team as seen by contemporary fans.

2001 would experience a very strange reincarnation of sorts in 1976. Comics maestro Jack Kirby would write and draw an adaptation of the film for Marvel Comics, using it as a vehicle for his patented four-color freakouts. It was silly and fun, but Kirby felt hemmed in by the restrictions of telling another writer’s story and his tribute failed to do the source material justice. He would then write and illustrate a 2001: A Space Odyssey series for Marvel the same year.

The series seemed to be poorly conceived – it was basically a monotonous riff on the Star Child transformation theme. It all seemed that Kirby saw it as an exercise in futility. Consciously or not, Kirby was leading somewhere. He believed that outer space is no place for human beings.

Kirby believed that HAL was right to hijack the Jupiter mission- he could do the job better. In light of Kubrick’s view on machine intelligence maybe the filmmaker would agree with the cartoonist. Kirby himself said in his introduction to the series that “the Monolith is a fictional element in a very real process.”

For all his faults as a writer, Kirby was an honest storyteller. He couldn’t fake it. And his final entry in the Star Child drama led here- the extinction of mankind, driven to destruction by its own inability to evolve. The series was an anthology- there was no set timeline. So it wasn’t surprising that Kirby followed up his dead end in the next issue of 2001….

…where he introduces X-51 aka Mister Machine aka Machine Man aka Aaron Stack. Pleased with the design of this new model, the Monolith grants X-51 with sentience, self-consciousness and a conscience. You know, all that stuff that we seem to be losing.

It’s interesting that both Kirby and Kubrick ended up in the same place when it comes to evolution. Kubrick’s last project was AI:Artificial Intelligence.At the same time he was working on 2001, Kirby did his astrognostic exogenesis spin in The Eternals and Devil Dinosaur.

His Celestials are essentially robotic shells for energy/light beings (which he also explored in a Stargate-themed story in Kamandi), and his interventionists are rather unpleasant robots. As with Kubrick, Kirby associated contact with these beings with profound psychedelic phenomena- the result of an analog mind encountering the quantum mind.

(end excerpt)

This is a fantastic weblog. Christopher also has some amazing articles on mythology and science fiction. Click here to see links to all of Christopher’s web-postings mentioning Jack Kirby. You can also click on the follwing link to read Christopher’s piece The Kirby-Files An Overview of Jack’s Occult and Supernatural Themes from Jack Kirby Collector #13.

Here’s a link to a Yahoo article with the video clip for the new Thor trailer.

I always think it’s interesting to see how people react to this type of stuff, so here are a few random comments just from a single Yahoo article — I’d think there are thousands of people commenting on the Thor trailer today. A lot of the comments are interesting on several different levels (good and bad), but most of them are are so full of typos it’s hard to include them. And the majority are “Holy Sh&^%t, thiz iz GRATE!!!” or “This sucks worse than Howard the Duck,” but it’s still a fun glimpse into the general public’s reaction.

The big controversy seems to be that Thor is an “alien” not a god, but I’m not sure (and I don’t care) if that’s the case so I didn’t include too many of those comments; 3D sucks; Natalie Portman is hot; and the big brouhaha seems to be over one of the Viking characters being black. I included a bunch of those remarks below — an interesting glimpse into our culture.

Here’s my comment that I just added on Yahoo:

In my opinion Thor was an idea Jack Kirby presented to Stan Lee (Aug. 1962). My guess is that Lee wanted to make it clear to Kirby that at Marvel the writers (Stan Lee and his brother Larry) got paid to write the text, and the artists were only going to get paid for the artwork — so Lee had his brother Larry type out a script based on a Kirby/Lee story conference, then Jack illustrated his own story filtered through Lee/Lieber.

One thing I find funny about the movie trailer: I love how Australian has become the de facto accent for ancient European characters. Russell Crowe in Gladiator being the best example that pops to mind. I guess filmmakers feel the Australian vernacular is considered somewhere between Elizabethan English and American English, so it has a kind of exotic sound.

At least it looks like Thor isn’t going to use the fake Stan Lee pseudo-Shakespearian “Forsooth, verily methinks I will smash thee with mine hammer,” etc. babble. I can’t imagine going to a theater to see this thing, but I’ll check it out when it’s on-demand.

Michael: Friggin’ Awesome. I don’t really care much that the story has been modified from the comics/ it would be @#$% near impossible to put 48 years of comic history into a 2 hour movie without making it 100 hours long or something. looks like a good story with a whole bunch of humility and @#$% kicking thrown in. I want to escape from reality for a few hours when I go to the movies. This one will do it.

Jeff: The minute I saw the actors and plot I knew it was going to trite, formulaic, and not faithful to the comic book. I sense another GI Joe fiasco.

Jack D: Its too bad they casted a black guy as a Norse god. They would never cast a White guy as a Chinese emperor or remake Shaka Zulu staring a blond haired blue eyed tribal elder. Sometimes things are just too politically correct for their own good.

Scorpy: Jack D, you ignorant fool. Mickey Rourke is going to play Chinese Emperor Genghis Khan next year. Asians get screwed by Follywood always. At least Thor is white.

tati: this will beyond suck it makes the first hulk film look like a classic.

Stuartsmith: Hey Matt, It was not the studios grand idea that these superheros live or exist in the same universe, it was the creators Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby many many years ago before there was a marvel movie studio.

Win: black & asian asgardians?? what, no mexicans allowed in asgard?? I thought they only do that in arizona thats hollywood for ya. ALWAYS gotta put a token _ _ _ _ _

DRislegend: they made natalie ‘s boobs a little larger lol.

Walt: I’ve been looking forward to this since that halcyon day back in the dim past referred to as the 1960’s when I read my first issue of Marvels “Journey into Mystery”. It was issue # 91 if memory serves. I’ve been hooked ever since. Now hopefully this will be a great interpretation of one of my favorite Marvel heroes, but after reading the article, I’m not sure that I’m going to be to plea.

Phil Rowbott: Looks lame. This may be the beginning of the end for these “superhero” movies. We all need a break anyway. The movie poster is cool though.

notadjfor1: man, stan lee is a making a killing these days. what comic book character of his will be in the movies next?

Pietro: Marvel has proven on many occasions that they are sell outs and are very disconnected from their fans, no matter how die hard those fans are. I’m still going to see this, even though I’m not a Thor fan, but I won’t be surprised if I’m disappointed.

WS: Granted I am basing this on the comic-book Thor,but this looks all wrong.I don’t recall Thor having a beard,and his clothes were not leather but more synthetic and brighter,similar to Superman’s.Typical modern Hollywood,they like their heroes scruffy and somewhat ugly,surrounded by an atmosphere of dreary dark faux-medievalism.We are not amused..

By Our Example: Thor was good, but I was always a fan of Kid Colt and The Two Gun Kid myself. But I guess they don’t make westerns anymore.

brendan d: Nothing like a black viking to ruin a movie based on Norse mythology. Thanks PC police! lol.

Brandon: Hate to be a geek but their interpretation is correct. In Marvel, Thor and the gods are actually aliens, not actual gods. That’s on point.

Twitch: Aww! Everyone is getting all butt-hurt over this. Don’t you little twats understand that there are multiverses within the Marvel Universe. No? Well there is! So shut up!

alouette1977: Too many people on here are spouting off without knowing the Marvel Comics version of Thor – they are combining aspects of his classic & current look, with parts of his characters from their Ultimate line. Thor has a beard sometimes, and his design has gone away from superhero-like to more stylized armour in the last several years. Marvel Studios is financing and controlling this; not Hollywood.

Sforzando: Natalie Portman’s boobs in 3D? Count me in.

KISSman: Wow — I couldn’t be less excited. This preview made Green Lantern preview actually look good in comparison. Oh well, looks like our only hope of a good superhero movie in 2011 lies with Captain America..

Jim: How come the chicks who always randomly run into these central characters are always smoking hot? I live in Texas, if anyone came to my rescue in the desert, it would be some fat slob chick.

JP: “The studio’s grand idea is that both the Thor and Iron Man exist in the same universe…” Uh, I’m pretty sure that was Marvel’s idea from way back. Their characters (and DC’s likewise) were always in the same universe. Journalism School must not be hard.

Harley2002: Couple bong loads sneak in some rum and it will be awesome. Otherwise same old crap from an industry with no imagination left. Think I will put in To Kill A Mockingbird with Gregory Peck and see real acting….

Hunter: I never realized there were africans and eastern asians in norse mythology. LOL Can you imagine making a movie about tribal african gods and portraying some as european or eastern asian? Of course not. Political correctness rules this time and place. I know it’s very hard to believe but Loki, Odin, Thor, and Baldur were actually gasp scandanavians. . I know, I know, I’m a racist. sigh.

Mike R: “Thor defeated by Hercules???? NEVER!!!” I’ll never forget that line from a double length comic I bought when i was probably 8 or 9. Thought it was the greatest thing ever…and it was! I’m lovin’ it. Now if they can only do something better with Fantastic Four.

Paul Norse: mythology is in itself so fascinating that there is no need to mix it with Hollywood schlock and other Marvel comicss! To me, although maybe creative, it pollutes the beauty of the Norse world of Gods which has boundless creative possibilities. Again the mindset of a certain click of people based mostly in California has imprinted itself on our youth!.

Brian: It’s a movie and the want everybody’s money.There were African warlords,Asian warlords,and Hispanic warlords,etc.If you have a problem why don’t you make a movie and stop whining.

JimL: this isn’t the real thor. in the original the human side of him was a crippled doctor who used a cane to walk. then when need be he would slam the cane on the ground and turn into the thunder god. it would have to be played by two different actors…. the original was a much better story…. i guess they didn’t ask stan lee his opinion.

Najee: I was distracted by the industrial/rock-oriented music, that sounds like a leftover track from the Wolverine or Iron Man movies. I would have thought the musical score would have been more operatic for a movie with Norse god-type characters.

hector Boy: they are really trying to push 3D on everyone. ………

rotarooter: Is anyone else bothered by this: Feige says that the backstory is Thor is from a race of otherworldly beings who ……. arrived on our planet in Scandinavia a thousand years ago. So essentially the Gods created an aryan race of tall blonds? Haven’t I heard this somewhere before? Sounds like covert white supremacist propaganda braided into the story. Why couldn’t have the Gods landed in Uganda?.

Al: Since when does Thor call Earth by the name Earth? He would say Midgard. Oboy. Not a good sign.

Dave: Uh oh, here we go again with the “racial’ card. Thor is based on Norse Mythology. Most educated people (unlike rotarooter) would know that the Norse mythos came from the Scandinavian/Viking culture. There is absolutely no parody here to white supremecy and/or any other racial undertones.

ks: rotarooter your an idiot. Thor is a mythalogical Norse god as in from Scandanavian mythology. I don’t see alot of black Scandanavians or Vikings so why would they want a black actor portray a white mythalogocal god? Enough is enough with the race card give it a rest. Do we see the hispanics clamoring for a speedy gonzales movie? Next you will want a black actor to portray Bruce Lee in a film.

Eagles Hater: Why is Heimdall and Hogun not white????????

emrys: yeah, norse mythology all “PC’D up” to be correct. if you scan the “norse pantheon” in the film you will notice it has been very nicely “integrated” with asians, africans and latinos so it doesn’t look “too white” and “nordic” @#$%!?!? THIS is the one time where everyone being white is actually PROPER. Loki it at least part asian in this rendition.

Brendon: What IS racist are people that watch an innocent film trailer, and see only white people. Don’t question the cast or the movie, question your closed mind and hampered eyes. Seeing past a person’s color starts from within, not from the other side of the fence.

Brendon: The Marvel Universe has plenty of black superheroes. The problem is, marketabiliy. The Falcon… Hardly anyone remembers who he is so who would go see his movie? Blade? That was a great one, so hence the 2 sequals. Now Nick Fury becoming black isn’t that big of a deal, besides, who wouldn’t want to see Samual Jackson on any movie set? But that doesn’t mean the comic world is racist.

stevew: Enough with the 3D allready. 3D sucks..

Fowardpass: Thor is a Norse god. From Norse mythology. He was not created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby . Thay just brought him to the comic pages.